Just 35% of British public in new ICM survey would back Britain leaving the EU without agreement with other states. Of the 54% of people who opposed the government’s position, 34% said May should continue negotiating. A further 20% backed halting the process pending a second referendum on the terms of the deal, an option backed by the Lib Dems and a cross-party group of MPs including the Labour MPs David Lammy, Heidi Alexander and Ben Bradshaw, as well as the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas.

Phil Hornby wrote:-Corbyn insisted by way of a three-line whip that Labour support was given to the government to pursue this farce. Accordingly, whatever dog's dinner is eventually wheeled out , he will be up to his neck in it when the blame is apportioned.

That is so true.

If I owned a black tie I would wear it all day tomorrow. Triggering Article 50 to leave the EU is the most absurd decision that any PM has taken since Churchill approved Mountbatten’s crackpot plan to attack Dieppe in 1942, with the intention of holding it for just one day. It didn't succeed, and 3,367 men were either killed, wounded or captured, the RAF lost 106 aircraft, and the Royal Navy lost 33 landing craft and one destroyer. Eden's invasion of Suez in 1956 was almost as stupid, but that’s another story…..

Cameron agreed to hold the EU referendum because he was too weak to stand up to the rabid right of the Tory Party, and because he was scared of his MPs, party members and voters switching their allegiance to UKIP. We know how that turned out, both for his career and for the future of the UK. Now Corbyn, in what appeared to be a lose-lose situation, has in my opinion shot himself in the foot for similar reasons. He was no doubt afraid of being accused of ignoring the so-called “will of the people”, and also of losing Labour Brexit supporters to UKIP, even though that grubby little outfit appears to be a busted flush. So he handed May a blank cheque to trigger Article 50, even imposing a three-line whip on Labour MPs, regardless of how their individual constituencies voted. As a result 11,000 people have left the party in the last four weeks, most giving their reason as the party's stance on Brexit.

Whatever decision Corbyn had taken over this was bound to have negative consequences in the short term. However, if he had stuck to the party’s policy of being pro-EU, which most MPs, members and voters support, Labour couldn’t have been accused of complicity in Brexit when it dawns on people what a disastrous decision it has been. Perhaps I will go out and buy a black tie.

"Those in Theresa May’s government who have blithely imagined they can have the best of all worlds face a cold shower of reality. If the two-year Article 50 process invoked by the prime minister does not break down in acrimony, it will conclude in 2019 with Britain a markedly diminished nation. The terms of the relationship with its own continent will have been set by others; and power in today’s world does not belong to those striking out on their own."

"Sir Richard Branson is critical of Theresa May's handling of the Brexit negotiations

“I think the Government needs to very seriously look at what’s on offer and then decide whether this is going to do enormous damage to the country or not. And if they do feel it’s going to do a lot of damage, they need to be honest.”

'A hard Brexit will damage the travel industry severely. It’s already been damaged from just the thought of it,” he says, pointing in part to Virgin Atlantic’s disclosure last week that it will make a loss this year due in no small part to sterling’s weakness.

“We’re talking about the travel industry losing hundreds of millions of pounds collectively – billions I suspect – so they’d be foolish not to speak out.”

Brexit supporters may be in line for a real shock. Even beyond the coming loss of access to the EU’s market, the promise of a politically resurgent Britain is likely to fall flat. Much of the rhetoric of the pro-Brexit crowd centres around the reclamation of British ‘sovereignty’ from technocrats in Brussels. But Brexit proponents have also projected a nostalgic vision of Britain once more asserting itself as a dominant player on the world stage. May has trumpeted the dawn of a new ‘Global Britain’: a nation capable of finding a new accommodation with other parts of the world — especially those it once colonised. Her government is seeking to boost trade links to many of the nations of the Commonwealth — particularly in Africa — in a move labelled by some anonymous government officials as ‘Empire 2.0.’

The reality is that many Commonwealth nations simply don’t need Britain. Australian exports to the UK amount to 1.4% of its total outgoing trade. Canada will always look south, not east. India has an economy already roughly the same size as Britain’s; Indian moguls now own some of Britain’s most iconic companies. Historian David Olusoga noted in ‘The Guardian’ that “The motorbikes on the freeways of Accra and Lagos are Chinese, assembled by local mechanics from kits shipped direct from Shandong. West Africa’s new convenience food is Chinese instant noodles, not fish and chips, and the supermarkets that sell them are South African-owned. Many Africans still have emotional and often familial links to Britain, but those with money are now as keen to holiday in Dubai as London.”

Last year’s referendum, in which 51.9% of the people who voted signalled a preference to leave the EU, represented a victory for the old, the less-educated, and the xenophobic. The young, the college-educated, and the outward-looking all rejected, and still reject, Brexit. Many of them regard it as a wilful act of self-destruction, and future historians will surely agree with them.

Leaving the EU without a deal would be catastrophic. In such a situation, British goods would suddenly face tariffs and would be subjected to customs checks. Even more damaging, a lot of multinational companies that have set up operations in Britain because of its access to the EU would move their operations across the Channel. Arguably, this process is already beginning. A number of big banks have said that they will be shifting staff from London to Frankfurt. BMW, the German car manufacturer that now owns the iconic Mini brand, is reportedly considering whether to build a new version of the compact car in Germany rather than Oxford.

May and her fellow-Brexiteers have dismissed these developments, but despite their talk about creating a “truly global Britain” and turning the U.K. into a "global hub", they don’t have a viable post-Brexit vision to offer. To quote the FT’s Gideon Rachman, Britain is long past the days of empire, when it was “capable of blasting its way into global markets”. And it isn’t tiny Singapore either. It’s a medium-sized post-industrial nation off the coast of Europe, which is its natural trading partner.

George Monbiot: Freeing up the rich to exploit the poor – that’s what Trump and Brexit are about

Freedom is a word that powerful people use to shut down thought. When think-tanks and the billionaire press call for freedom, they are careful not to specify whose freedoms they mean. When corporations free themselves from trade unions, they curtail the freedoms of their workers. When the very rich free themselves from tax, other people suffer through failing public services. When financiers are free to design exotic financial instruments, the rest of us pay for the crises they cause.

Above all, billionaires and the organisations they run demand freedom from something they call “red tape”. What they mean by red tape is public protection. We are choking, but not on red tape. We are choking because the government flouts European rules on air quality. The resulting air pollution frees thousands of souls from their bodies.

Ripping down such public protections means freedom for billionaires and corporations from the constraints of democracy. This is what Brexit – and Donald Trump – are all about. The freedom we were promised is the freedom of the very rich to exploit us.

Up to 100,000 UK jobs at risk as Merkel and Juncker ally warns on euro clearing

EU lawmaker Manfred Weber says sector must relocate out of City of London after Brexit, and a recent report from the accountants Ernst & Young additionally claimed that losing the business could have “a significant domino effect on jobs and revenue”, hitting up to 232,000 workers throughout the UK.

Bonnie Greer: With Brexit we have turned our back on the world – and our values

Brexit and the Leave campaign have uncovered something truly ugly. Their cause has become a flag of convenience: for racists, bigots and xenophobes. Racial hate crimes since Leave won the referendum have spiked.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone who voted Leave is a racist or a bigot or a xenophobe. That would be a racist, bigoted and ridiculous thing to even suggest. But every Leave person I’ve asked either can’t or won’t answer this: Why do racists, bigots, xenophobes find, in Brexit, a flag of convenience, a refuge? What attracts these kinds of people to the campaign to leave the EU?

While it’s true that not every Brexit person is a racist, you’re more likely to find your classic, garden-variety racist voting for Leave. Gina Miller, who deserves a medal for her fight for parliamentary sovereignty, has recently told me harrowing tales of what she’s had to face. The racists and xenophobes have come out of the woodwork to get her, and their variety is staggering.

Not far from where I live, there is a narrow side-road which has a prominent sign reading, No through road No space to turn.At irregular intervals, a stranger will inevitably choose to put their reversing skills (or lack thereof) to the test.

What a difference a May makes. A General Election on June 8th. will be like no other previous GE - it will specifically be a Brexit Poll. All those people who have been "demanding a recount" since the Referendum last June will now effectively get one.

Brexit voters have responded angrily to news that EU diplomats are plotting to withdraw flagship agencies from Britain ‘within weeks’. ‘The Daily Express’ reported the move was a “Brexit punishment” - despite admitting the loss of the European Banking Authority and the European Medical Agency (EMA) was inevitable after the triggering of Article 50.

The two agencies not only employ hundreds of staff, many of them British, in the capital - but also create huge demand for goods and services. The EMA on its own attracts over 40,000 visitors each year to its offices - creating the need for 350 hotel rooms every night, five days a week.

Not only is May breezily claiming that “the British people” are behind her in her endeavours, when literally everyone knows it was, at most, 52% of a 72% turnout – or roughly 37%, assuming nobody’s changed their minds in the meantime (and a lot of people have) – she actually stated during her speech on Article 50 day that Brexit would “strengthen the union” between the countries of the UK. To claim that, when all available evidence and reason suggests it will sunder it forever, is not optimism, it’s insanity.

Brexit is a lie, and the tower of lies that has been constructed over the last nine months to support and sustain that lie is swaying alarmingly. The best thing now would be to push the damn thing over in a controlled demolition before it gets high enough to do irreversible damage when it falls.

John Callinan claims London is aware that leaving the EU is an “act of great self-harm”. He also highlighted the existence of internal divisions on the British side just weeks out from the start of formal withdrawal negotiations with the EU, saying it was clear there was “no single, settled position” on Brexit in London.

One of the undying Brexit myths is that it was a people’s revolt, a spontaneous anti-elite rebellion against a pro-European establishment. Yet we now learn that up to two-thirds of the cash that paid for Brexit came from just five extremely wealthy anti-European fanatics. Between them, Arron Banks, Peter Hargreaves, James Hosking, Robert Edmiston and Crispin Odey channelled £14.9 million to different pro-Brexit groups.

The Electoral Commission is investigating the UKIP-linked Leave.EU campaign, which tipped the balance in favour of Brexit with lavish anti-EU propaganda material that flooded into people’s home with false claims of 75 million Turks about to come to Britain as Turkey was on the point of becoming an EU member state – a complete and utter lie. The Electoral Commission says it is looking into “potential offences under the law”. It is important that the huge amount of money that has been poured into anti-EU campaigning in the last two decades is examined and revealed, from the dubious funding coming from hard right-wing sources in the USA to the bizarre links between UKIP and the Kremlin via Julian Assange.

When you also consider the support of major papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, Jonathan Harmsworth and the tax exile Barclay Brothers – not to mention the years of anti-Brussels stories beforehand – the Brexit win was a victory of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. At the very minimum, the myth that the Brexit result was the outcome of a disinterested, equally balanced and fair decision, resulting from fair debate free of outside influence, needs to be exposed as the lie it is.

I really hope the General election is not fought solely on Brexit - feel it's time to focus on much more important things - the NHS, education, housing, social security - whatever happens about Europe, it'll be a disaster for the population if we don't get rid of the Tories

oftenwrong wrote:Embattled Corbynistas are now asking contrarian members of the Labour Party, "Why don't you eff off and join the Tory Party?"

That's not a view to which I would ever subscribe. The Labour Party has always been a coalition of socialists and social democrats, and at times one or the other has been in the ascendancy. I was shocked that so many of the latter category behaved so badly when Jeremy Corbyn was twice elected leader by an overwhelming majority. Imagine how much stronger the party would now be if, rather than the present incumbent, Yvette Cooper - a very clever lady - had still been shadow home secretary, instead of throwing her toys out of the pram when she didn't win the leadership.

An interesting question for June 8th must now be how former Labour voters who switched to UKIP at the Council Elections will behave then?

The problem seems to be that former Labour voters who supported Brexit switched to UKIP in 2015 and, as UKIP implodes under the leadership of the ridiculous Paul Nuttall, have switched again, this time to the Tories, who have now endorsed all the dog-whistle, anti-immigration, 'Little Englander' prejudices for which UKIP existed.

During my career in social work, I had often the experience of working to support people who self-harm.Self-harm is a coping strategy, strange as it may seem, which substitutes one pain (which may be bearable) for another (which definitely is not). It also serves as a form of communication for people who can't articulate their grief or mental anguish.

When dealing with people who self harm, the approved and effective strategy is surprisingly not always to leap to prevent the self-harm (which can act to further entrench the behaviour) but to stand by with bandages and first aid equipment and encourage the individual to care for their wounds afterwards, thus providing a strong message that, although they are a flawed individual who has made a mistake, they are nevertheless still worthy of care and will not be judged for their behaviour.In the aftermath, it is often possible to discuss strategies for managing the pain without self harming.

By analogy, a portion of the British public has committed an act of self-harm which to them seemed to provide an answer to a more severe hurt. Telling them they are wrong and calling them names helps us to ventilate our own grief and anger, but does nothing to change their view. The therapeutically correct and helpful response is to stand by with the bandages, do what we can to moderate the ill effects of the self-harm and, later, to engage in discussion of how things can be best arranged in future to avoid the need for self-destructive behaviour.

The analogy is not perhaps perfect but it seems to me that the task at present is to move forward from that disastrous vote, hoping to moderate the worst effects (voting in a Labour government would be a good start, because May's response will be to withdraw all first aid and see us bleed to death) and aiming for a renegotiation of our social contract so as to avoid the need for future acts of self-harm

boatlady. That’s an interesting and well-constructed analogy. The pain of feeling ‘left behind’ and suffering from years of austerity cuts, while feeling that nobody has been listening to them, caused too many to seize the chance to blame the EU for all their ills. The analogy breaks down, however, because the self-harmers weren’t just harming themselves but also the 62.54% of the electorate who didn’t vote Leave. Maybe the last sentence of that poster is inappropriate and unhelpful, but the question which never gets answered is pertinent – “In what ways will Brexit personally benefit me and my family?”.

self harmers usually harm those around them - castigating them and punishing them only serves to reinforce the self harming behaviour - I'm afraid the only medicine here is patience.

This is frustrating, but we've all seen how useful it is at this point to argue or abuse the brexit bunch - I guess they're really not ready to think yet about consequences and until they are it's not possible to discuss consequences

Self-harm is a coping strategy, strange as it may seem, which substitutes one pain (which may be bearable) for another (which definitely is

The analogy is not perhaps perfect but it seems to me that the task at present is to move forward from that disastrous vote, hoping to moderate the worst effects (voting in a Labour government would be a good start, because May's response will be to withdraw all first aid and see us bleed to death) and aiming for a renegotiation of our social contract so as to avoid the need for future acts of self-harm[/quote]

I imagine the unexpected result of the General Election will include a reappraisal by everyone in England of their position on Brexit - which has to involve a consideration of which direction of movement will facilitate a positive outcome - I think it becomes increasingly clear that staying with 'strong and stable' Mrs May is going to result in more and more punishment for ordinary voters and maybe this direction of travel will become less and less enticing - there may yet be hope

The brains behind the Brexit vote has admitted it might be possible that leaving the EU “will be an error” and the referendum itself was a “dumb idea”. Dominic Cummings, the campaign director for the official Vote Leave campaign, claimed “other things should have been tried first” before the referendum was called - suggesting he would have backed further attempts at reform. Cummings, a former adviser to Michael Gove in the Department for Education, also described the government’s approach to Brexit as a “farce” and “chaotic”.

"Economics did not trump politics when Britain voted to leave the EU. It does not trump politics now that 27 countries are determined to preserve the union. And not only as a defence against a return of fascism and communism.

Other countries have their national interests too. The supposedly omnipotent German car manufacturers did not stop Angela Merkel imposing sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, even though sanctions hurt sales. Germany, like the rest of Europe, like Britain itself, had an interest in stopping the rebirth of Russian imperialism and that came first. In any case, defending the single market will have long-term economic benefits for every large company in Europe, their workers and the old, the sick and the young who rely on their tax revenues. As German industrialists make clear, they would rather lose British sales than see the world’s richest market undermined.

It’s embarrassing now to go back over Boris Johnson’s statements on Brexit, although nowhere near as embarrassing as being a citizen of a country where Johnson is the foreign secretary. The Brexit campaign was built on racism and outright lies. But underlying it was a sincerely held belief in the potential for Britain greatness. Diplomats were meant to divide and conquer the EU. They couldn’t. They were meant to guarantee that the EU did not outsmart Britain by ensuring that Brussels did not dictate the agenda. They failed again. This is not the fault of civil servants. Ever since Theresa May effectively fired our ambassador to the EU for telling her uncomfortable truths, they have been cowed. The government has cut their numbers and put them through a time-wasting and pointless reorganisation. The result is plain to see: the civil service is no longer a Rolls-Royce but a battered Nissan Micra with a neurotically nervous driver."

Chancellor Philip Hammond has emerged as the main cheerleader for a business-friendly Brexit. His reputation for being one of the cabinet ministers in favor of a softer Brexit had made him a candidate for the chopping block when it looked as if May was heading for a landslide with an army of hard-Brexit supporters.

But May’s poor election performance has raised his stature, and he’s been unafraid to spar with Brexit Secretary David Davis, the chief negotiator, or take jabs at Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one of the faces of the successful “Leave” campaign. In Berlin last week, Hammond joked that he now tried to “discourage talk of ‘cake’ amongst my colleagues.”